In the prior art, it has been well known that computer systems can be used to index a database. The index can subsequently be searched to locate database records.
In recent years, a unique distributed database has emerged in the form of the World-Wide-Web (Web). The database records of the Web are in the form of pages accessible via the Internet. Here, tens of millions of pages are accessible by anyone having a communications link to the Internet. The pages are dispersed over millions of different computer systems all over the world. Users of the Internet constantly desire to locate specific pages containing information of interest.
Indices to databases can assume a number of different forms. In order to maximize throughput, the number of procedures which interface with the indices should be kept to a small number. Also, as much work as possible should be performed by low-level highly optimized procedures to minimize switches to slower application level procedures.
Therefore, it is desired to perform the searching of indices using a small number of interfaces which include search constraints that can resolve locations of information in the same records.